SilencedByTheAmazonNazis

Nothing new, just rephrased (& read by a TERF)

Revisado: 11-19-22

It's mythology. That's it. And Fry's reading is literally just some guy reading mythology -- albeit with a smooth English accent that's nominally enjoyable I guess? Especially disappointing since he's not that great of a person, and someone else could have at least brought some dignity to this very dry reboot. If you want to listen to stories from mythology, go to youtube and pick videos done by people who aren't so blatantly hateful.

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doesn't reach its potential, such a waste

Revisado: 10-12-22

This had a solid start with some truly creative notions, and even manages to lampshade some of the funnier tropes of vampire fiction.
I particularly liked how the parallels were drawn between "passing" as human and the transgender experience of "passing" as our gender identity. Well played! I also appreciated the allegory around vampires policing one another for engaging in live feeding (rather than passive transfusions) and how it ties to the way closeted gatekeepers try to police other queer people about living visibly as our authentic selves and insist that we only exist in clinics and the proverbial underground, never allowed to truly pursue our natures with other consenting adults.

The writing style is uncommon and the personalities presented are realistic. I adored Elsie/Else way more than I usually would a side character. The situational stressors of being trans, being visibly different, rearranging our lives around avoiding the light of day, all of it was pitch perfect here. I loved that.

HOWEVER: My hesitation began with the clunky insert of the OTW into dialogue, and the praise it is pointedly given throughout the rest of the book. It brought nothing of value to the overall story, undermined the exposition, and was hugely distracting at best. We get it, they're fanfic readers and fanfic writers. (So are we, many of the readers.) I also cringed hard at the "twincest!" line. Can we please not? Queer stories are already scrutinized harshly enough and framed in so many places as "perverse" [glaring right at you, Marvel]. Do we really need the incest fetish pointlessly associated with us? Come on.

It is along those lines that this OTW/AO3 worship poisons the tea. The org itself was a great idea in response to [Someone]'s overzealous litigating which targeted fanfiction itself for years. But the OTW's interior culture is extremely toxic and problematic, with their staff's outward treatment of the queer community topping a long list of other valid observations which have given pause to a lot of us seeking a place to safely drop our queerfics and engage with readers. In response to MANY of us asking their support staff for a way to block abusive users, the discourse has become so gross and condescending that a considerable number of us have outright pulled our content and gone elsewhere. In short, that platform is NOT the freewheeling bastion of queer-positive transgression this author insists that it is. I do hope that the author will rethink his evangelism of that brand if he is planning to continue bluntly advertising it in concurrent works marketed to our community.

Additionally, I was very put off by the way Sol's character repeatedly apologized and simpered to a coworker who was nothing less than a seething TERF who deliberately ruins his life and costs him his professional reputation. You can apologize once for living in the basement of your employer and be done with it; the constant overtures in person and in emails were frankly disturbing, given her unrepentant hatred for Sol's identity. This touches upon the toxic way mainstream (and even queer) culture insists that trans people be accommodating and apologetic at all times, the heaviest of respectability politics leveraged against us in every facet of our lives.

Overall I kinda enjoyed the book and might read others by this same author. But I do not personally recommend this as "queer representation" in any way, and I should warn prospective readers that there is some triggering content in quite a few scenes therein, none of which is resolved responsibly.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

What if Dracula, but actually interesting?

Revisado: 08-08-22

I've been playing the D&D module with friends for quite some time now and finally decided to poke at the lore behind it, at the insistence of friends who loved it. I am glad for their suggestion, as this has been one of the most enjoyable novels I've ever encountered.

I had abandoned the genre for decades after seeing it humiliated with utterly feckless dabbling by a new crop of the worst writers ever. Sparkling, whiny, aimless, and two-dimensional wastes of paper hitting mass market and movie theaters just made the whole V word such a joke that I stopped looking for anything new to read.

I can't believe that I snoozed on this in 1993 when it apparently first hit shelves. I guess I was already preoccupied with Talbot and Romkey and She Who Shall Not Be Named Here. I am thrilled to have finally unearthed this story.

Elrod is nothing less than a master author. Her descriptive language is lush and bold. She doesn't dawdle on a single passage, and instead lures the reader through every page, sometimes out of intrigue, and sometimes out of sheer anxiety at what might happen next. The world building is pitch perfect and the psychological dynamics and tension are exactly as they should be.

The character created by the Hickmans was such a breath of fresh air, and Elrod's project gives him such a rich, complex, and terrifying presence. An unreliable narrator, Strahd is not a good person; that's the whole point. One can admire, even sympathize, but never fully condone his actions or personality. His stubborn will, his warrior ways, his warped chivalry and his violence are fascinating to tour through his own voice, even when we are viscerally repulsed by his thoughts and choices.

I have rarely given 5 stars to anything, and this one earns it in the first chapter. Feel free to inflict this obsession upon everyone you know. They won't be disappointed.

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A good idea that went poorly, unfortunately.

Revisado: 01-02-21

This review does not embody any negativity toward the audiobook narrator; he did just fine, and I enjoyed his voice and delivery very much. I'd love to hear him do more.

As for the content itself, I'll start by saying that the overall storyline was well conceived, albeit morbid: some good storytelling elements invoking body horror, graphic violence, carefully constructed internal emotional processes, and interpersonal conflicts which were anything but shallow. The descriptive language was very well executed.

Unfortunately, the entire point of this novel was to elaborate upon the good work done by Al Ewing (Agent of Asgard) and give a younger Loki the relatability he needed for YA readers. This got about halfway there, but only with regard to typically relatable tropes like self-consciousness about appearance, inferiority, sibling rivalry, ineffectual parenting, and the consequences of letting teens go unsupported emotionally until The Bad Thing Happens, so to speak.

What really disappointed me most was the fact that this book was so loudly hyped everywhere as queer-affirming when it barely registered as such. Yes, the bisexuality was not ignored, but it was inadequately engaged. Loki seemed to be more aware of an attraction toward girls and only dimly willing to internalize male attraction, which is inaccurate in light of the bolder canon it tried to follow. (Do not get me started on this author's history of dealing poorly with the bi/pan issue and reader feedback.)

The biggest issue was with the gender representation. I have no idea why cisgender people keep getting paid to write representations of non-cisgender identity. They can't, and this book is yet another disappointing example of that. Yes, the idea of Loki existing "as both" is verbalized, and rather bluntly, but … only once. Worse, the only physical manifestation of Loki is exclusively masculine-presenting, and the only pronouns ever applied are masculine as well.

That is NOT genderfluidity, and no one at Marvel bothered to screen that and explain it to Lee before publication. This shouldn't have been difficult; the roadmap for this was carefully laid in easy language by Ewing years prior, so frankly there is no excuse for this failure -- especially from an author who is so frequently paraded about as so queer-positive.

Lee's assignment of an exclusively masculine-leaning identity is also inappropriately leveraged to construct a token male/male attraction plot which goes literally nowhere, and worse, it culminates with Loki being utterly AWFUL to the other male lead, only vaguely doling out genuine kindness, ultimately treating this male co-lead as inferior, detestable, pathetic, and only loveable as a novelty. (SPOILER: He's left behind with a destroyed life after everything he tried to do for Loki, out of love and loyalty.)

But the most heinous contribution this material makes toward future canon can only be fully understood after the viewing of Marvel's absolutely horrid, transphobic, queer-hostile, and incompetent rendering of "representation" in this year's Disney+ series.

Inexplicably, Lee chose to invoke the name "Sylvie Lushton" as a pseudonym of Amora. This conflation of these two characters is a whole essay in and of itself, but the bottom line for this particular instance is that it planted this name in the path of the infinitely careless showrunner Michael Waldron, who took her and inserted her into his poorly written screenplay. That screenplay then fully erased all genderfluidity for Loki, and, just like Lee has done here, gave us an exclusively masculine-presenting Loki with nearly invisible male attraction and overtly distracting female attraction.

(In the case of the series, this also led to the writing team deciding to then conflate genderfluidity and bisexuality with a GROTESQUE sexual disorder known as autogynephilia, which any good ally would have known is a disgusting homophobic and transphobic insult that's never been appropriate.)

I truly wanted to cheer for this book and its author. I did. But after what that series has done to the overwhelmingly queer fanbase of this character, and how much that hurt and still hurts, I cannot in good conscience recommend this piece to anyone in my community or anyone wanting to buy material for their queer teens or friends. It's insulting and careless, at best, and at worst, it makes the entire thing significantly worse for us to have to explain and defend to people whose only understanding of us now comes with even MORE damaging misinformation.

I need this author (and her sponsors at Marvel) to really hear this, and shut up long enough to really understand it:
You are not helping us when you do these things. They come with a deep emotional toll on us, especially the very vulnerable younger generation, and that toll takes itself in dangerous ways. YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT, AND CARE.

This is not a writing project for NaNoWriMo. This is not an obscure fanfic that only your ten friends will ever read. This book and its related film canon are publicly consumed by millions, worldwide, and as such they really do influence the narrative perspectives about us --- and this is doing so in ways which are inconsiderate and HARMFUL.

This community deserved better.

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